98
NOTES ' AND QUERIES. [9 th s. ix. FEB. i, 1902.
The paragraph relating to the coming Coro-
nation in MR. BUTTON'S interesting note is
probably due to an unconscious reminiscence
of the time when he read ' Symbols ' himself,
the last paragraph of which will to-day bear
amendment. It reads as follows :
" When, as the last English Coronation [that of George IV. Ed.l was preparing, concludes this wonderful Professor, I read in their Newspapers that the ' Champion of England,' he who must offer battle to the Universe for his new King, had brought it so far that he could now mount his horse with little assistance, I said to myself: Here also we have a Symbol well nigh superannuated. Alas, move whithersoever you may, are not the tatters and rags of superannuated worn out Symbols (in this Ragfair of a World) dropping off' everywhere, to hoodwink, to halter, to tether you ; nay, if you shake them not aside, threatening to accumulate, and perhaps produce suffocation."
Fortunately, to-day circumstances are dif- ferent, as are the principal personages in the ceremony referred to. W. S. S.
SEVEN (9 th S. viii. 525). The " Seven
Sisters" was the name of an old inn at
Tottenham, in front of which was a cluster
of seven elms in a circle, with a walnut tree
in the middle. An engraving showing the
trees as they appeared in 1830 will be founc
in ' Old and New London,' v. 373. The Seven
Sisters Road leads from Holloway to Totten-
ham. Elms and other trees seem to have
been often planted in clumps of seven.
I do not think the origin of Seven Kings at Ilford has ever been satisfactorily deter mined.
There is a farm called Seven Score near Ramsgate. The local etymologist derives the name from " Sea- vent-score, to which the sea scored, or marked up, close up, on the south in the olden time." The word score, however is merely equivalent to share.
W. F. PRIDEAUX. The number seven is more favoured than any other digit, for which various reason have been assigned. Bed well, who wrote a history of Tottenham about 270 years ago describes Page Green, near that village, a having a group of seven elms in a circle, each planted by a sister, and a walnut tree in th centre by the eighth. He says :
V This tree hath this many years stod there, an
t is observed yearely to live and beare leavs an
yet to stand at a stay, that is, to grow neithe
greater nor higher. This people do commonfy te
the reason to bee, for that there was one bu
i that place for the profession of the Gospel.
The tree planted by the most diminutiv
! 1 V 1St ?u S WaS alwa y s low in its growth
RTlfl Wncn f.ha /rJ^-Ui-U ..'.i_ T i , , f ,
he walnu
In Ireland there is the legend of the seven
sters at Bally bunion, situated a few miles
rom Kerry Head, co. Cork, fully given in
8t S. ix. 465; x. 112.
The favouritism of this number is remark - ble. Nine places in England have this )refix, six in our colonies, and seven in other jarts of the world.
EVERARD HOME COLEMAN. 71, Brecknock Road.
I have always understood that Seven Sisters load was named after seven elm trees which
bood outside an old public-house in the ocality bearing the sign of the ** Seven Sisters." In ' Old and New London,' v. 373, s an engraving showing the seven trees as
hey appeared in 1830, and the letterpress, x 380, states: "They were upwards of five lundred years old, and the tradition ran that
martyr had been burnt on the spot where
hey stood."
As to Seven Kings, near Ilford, the name appears to have originally belonged to a large
- arm in the locality. The legend is that the
Seven Kings of the Saxon Heptarchy once watered their horses at the neighbouring
tream, which here crosses the main road. It was anciently known as Seven Kings Water-
ng. JOHN T. PAGE.
West Haddon, Northamptonshire.
STOWE MISSAL (9 th S. viii. 484). The Stowe
\Iissal has not occurred in any of the Ash-
Durnham sales by public auction. But surely
it would have been included among the Stowe
MSS. which the late Earl of Ashburnham
3urchased en bloc, and which his successor,
- he present earl, sold to the British Govern-
ment. This collection is divided between the British Museum and the Dublin Library. 1 have no means at hand for making a more definite reply, but this may put H. A. W. on the right track. W. ROBERTS.
"As MAD AS A TUP "(9 th S. viii. 501). In Scotland it is said of a young woman who incontinently seeks the society of men that she "rins like a blind tup-in-the-wind." "As mad as the baiting bull of Stamford " is a similar phrase which had its origin in a custom that took place annually in that town, derived from a traditional incident recorded in histories of Lincolnshire. In the proverb "As mad as a March hare," which occurs in Hey wood's ' Epigrams,' 1567, the allusion is said to be to the fact that hares are unusually shy and wild in that month, their rutting time; but Erasmus in his 'Aphorisms '(p. 266, 1542) says that " hares are wilder in marshes from the absence of hedge and cover." The
